A/N: Since it's been so long, I'll give you a "Last Time" recap:

One of Willow's teachers at UC Sunnydale is a nutcase who found one of Spike's old diaries from shortly after he was turned and, consequently, is convinced that vamps exist - particularly the four who composed the Scourge of Europe - Angel, Darla, Dru, and Spike. He's in Sunnydale looking for any info. He went to the Magic Box looking for Giles (a local historian) where Anya, with her usual tact and timing, exposed Spike's identity. Don't you just love that girl?

On another front, the Nerds have magically enlarged a bunch of Brown Recluse Spiders and set them loose in the town. Our heroes have killed some, but not nearly all.

And on yet another front, someone's trying to assassinate Spike. The only clue so far? One of the attackers (who the spiders helpfully killed before throwing themselves on Buffy and Spike's swords) was wearing an "Order of Taraka" ring. Oh, and the bank records Willow hacked into indicate that the person paying the Tarakans is Spike's second slayer - you know, the one he killed in the subway and then took that nice leather coat from. Of course, the gang doubts the veracity of a dead woman taking out a hit on her vampire killer. Go figure. They're also kind of wary about Willow's professor and have decided not to give him too much info until they know more about him and his motives.

For today, Willow's class has been assigned to write a "Where Are They Now" kind of paper about the Scourge. And now, the continuation of "Interview With a Scourge".

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CHAPTER 9

The next day, Willow looked up from rereading her assignment for the fifth time as Buffy sat down next to her. She hated that she couldn't put her knowledge of the Scourge to use for this homework. Withholding the information made her feel like she wasn't doing her best as far as the assignment was concerned. For Willow, failing to do her best in school was tantamount to treason against herself. Why go if you weren't going to try?

"Had so much fun last time you decided school isn't that bad after all?" the redhead asked.

"Oh, no," the blonde replied. "It's still that bad. But more than worth it if I can get any more dirt on Spike."

"I feel kind of bad for the guy," Willow said thoughtfully. "He's obviously worked hard to change his image. Which makes me think he was even more of a geek back in the day."

"Like I said."

"Buffy," Willow admonished quietly. "I've been there. On the fringe of the cool crowd. So have you. It's not any fun. And now that we're the cool crowd, don't you think we should be just a bit nicer?"

"You're right, Will," Buffy replied. "But any teasing is just between friends."

Willow raised one eyebrow skeptically. "Do you really think of him that way? As a friend?"

"I don't know," Buffy admitted after a pause. "Do you?"

"Maybe," Willow said. "Sometimes. But not like I think of the rest of you. And I don't think he thinks of himself as part of the group."

"You're right," the blonde conceded.

Before she could say anything more the vampire in question plopped down in the seat on the other side of Willow, and Buffy quickly changed the topic.

"What did you write about, Wills?"

"Hi, Spike," Willow said, hoping to change the subject again since she was still unhappy with her homework. "What is it with you two and my class?"

"Talked to the man last night," Spike replied, nodding in response to the greeting. "After we chatted, he invited me to come hear what the kiddies had to say about me. Decided to take him up on his offer."

"You talked to him?" Buffy demanded. "What did you tell him? I thought we agreed you wouldn't talk to him until we knew more."

"No," the vampire replied. "You decided I wouldn't talk to him. I never agreed." He shrugged. "Doesn't matter though. Didn't tell him anything he couldn't find out on the street."

"W-w-what?" Willow sputtered. "You told me I couldn't tell him anything and then you told him?"

"Relax, Red," Spike assured her. "I also told him that I don't share with just anyone and that you don't know much about me, so your paper would be just as much fiction as the next guy's."

"Dammit, Spike!" she hissed. "Your life reads like a soap opera! Mine would have been great and all I would have had to do was tell the truth!"

While the three had been arguing, the rest of the students had entered the room. Also, Gage had walked in and prepared for class. He cleared his throat, and the chatter in the room died down.

"Good afternoon, everyone," he began. "Today we're going to see how much you've learned and how creative you can be. As you know, the assignment called for you to choose any one or more of the four characters and write a description of where you think they should be at some point in the future. It doesn't have to be now. Nor does it have to be here. Regardless of the characters and settings you choose, you need to have incorporated some mythic aspects from the course into your story or description. Who'd like to start?"

The blonde girl in front of Willow who had been very talkative during the previous class raised her hand. Gage nodded acknowledgement and she began.

"I wrote about Darla. I took Bram Stoker's Dracula legend and placed Darla as one of his brides. I thought it would be fun to incorporate the two vampire legends."

A derisive snort escaped Spike, and Willow and Buffy turned to glare at him. He looked pointedly at the back of the blonde student's head and then rolled his eyes to indicate how ridiculous he thought her idea to be. Buffy leaned in close to Willow and whispered.

"He's got a point. Can you imagine Darla playing the meek seductress? Other than to catch prey, I mean."

Willow sighed in acquiescence. *This is going to be a long class.*

"Good," Gage said. "That's an interesting concept. Anyone else write about Darla?"

"I did," a dark haired woman in the back volunteered. "I wrote about her during World War II. She seemed exceptionally cruel from the excerpts we read. There was more than one comment about her attraction to death, fear, and pain. In the 20th century, there wasn't a place more filled with those things than Nazi Germany. I wrote about her masquerading as a Jew to get put on one of the deportation trains. Of course, when the train pulled into the concentration camp, everyone inside was dead."

"Now that sounds like something Darla would do," Spike commented quietly to Willow. "In fact, Dru wanted to do something similar once."

Willow's eyes grew wide. "D-d-did she?"

"No, I talked her out of it. Too dangerous. That many desperate people in that small of a space. We'd have likely been mobbed with no way out," he explained with a casual shrug.

Willow mentally shook herself. When faced with chipped, helpful, almost nice Spike on a daily basis, it was easy to forget the evils he was capable of. And while Willow seriously doubted she needed to fear Spike now, even if he was freed from the chip, she often choose to forget the years he'd spent earning his "Big Bad" reputation.

"That would have been a real shame," Buffy whispered snidely, in reference to the idea of Spike and Drusilla being mobbed.

The three turned their attention back to the class in time to hear an older man in the front row describe his homework.

"I wrote about Angelus and Darla in America during the 1920s. From the descriptions you gave us of Angelus' desire to attack high society from within, and of Darla's taste for the finer things in life, I think they would have fit in well with the overall excess of that era. They would have loved the parties, the drinking, the smoking, the almost hedonistic lifestyle many in the upper class adopted during that decade."

"Intriguing," Gage said.

"Yeah, too bad old Angelus was sucking down rats by then," Spike said.

He ignored the swift elbow in the ribs from Willow, but Buffy's icy glare was enough to convince the vampire to drop that line of commentary.

"Other stories about Angelus?" the professor asked.

"I wrote about him running a school for serial killers," said the boy who had joked about being the thing that goes bump in the night a few classes back. "I think he'd be real successful. I mean, to survive, a vampire would have to adapt to the times, right?"

"Yeah, unless he finds a look he likes," Buffy whispered to Willow just loudly enough for Spike to overhear. "Then he can feel free to wear the same clothes for the next thirty years."

"So, I'm thinking," the boy continued, "that he'd have to adapt to a world with all the cool, high-tech gadgetry we have now. Plus, what better credentials than being part of the Scourge of Europe, right?"

"Interesting," Gage said, noncommitently. "Who else?" He paused. When no one volunteered, he looked at Willow and asked, "Miss Rosenberg?"

"Yeah," Willow said nervously. "Um, I wrote about Spike, er, William and Drusilla. I wrote about them a few years ago. In my.story, they are attacked by a mob because Drusilla, being insane and all, didn't hide her true nature well enough. I set it somewhere in eastern Europe, like say, Prague, because I think that part of the world is more likely to still believe in vampires and other supernatural creatures today."

"Good," Gage smiled at her, sensing her nervousness, before turning to address the entire class. "Now, what would you say if I told you that I had more writings by the same author, detailing these characters approximately 120 later?"

Buffy and Willow exchanged a look. Obviously Gage was going to use the information Spike had given him and pass it off as the author's "future writings."

"That would be about now," the blonde girl in the front row pointed out quickly.

"You're right," Gage said. "Do you think anyone was close to what the author envisioned?"

Without waiting for a reply, Gage continued.

"Before I tell you what the author wrote, I should warn you that the characters don't end up in places where you might expect. I want you to think about the hows and whys of their journeys. Just like the first writings, this is also from the view of William. So, first he tells us what happened to the others, and then to himself."

"Does he now?" Willow whispered to her two companions. Both she and Buffy were wondering just how much Spike had told the professor.

"First, let's talk about Angelus and Darla. William tells us that the two elder vampires left him and Drusilla shortly after the turn of the century. He isn't sure why. Perhaps they were in search of greener pastures. That was the end of the Scourge proper. But it by no means ended the violence the four were capable of inflicting."

"No pissed-off gypsies, then?" Buffy quietly asked, not terribly surprised at the omission.

Spike just shook his head and turned his attention back to Gage. Buffy though she saw the start of a self-satisfied smirk on the vampire's face before she, too, turned her attention back to the professor.

"Darla was the first to die," the professor began.

"First?" Buffy whispered. Receiving no reply from the smirking vampire two seats over, the slayer crossed her arms and huffed as she sat back in her seat to learn of the "futures" Spike had devised for his vampire family with the rest of the class.

"She was killed by a nun in the early 1970's. She had infiltrated a convent with the goal of turning all of the nuns into vampires before the Pope was due to visit. Unfortunately for her, one of the nuns recognized her for what she was and killed her before Darla could get too far in her plan."

"Quite creative," Willow said appreciatively to Spike. Then her expression turned sour. "You couldn't have helped me come up with something more interesting than getting mobbed in Prague with an imagination like that?"

The vampire shrugged carelessly. "If I'd given you all my ideas, Red, what would I have told the good professor?"

"As for Angelus," Gage continued. "His story is perhaps the most complex and tragic. In fact, it's almost Shakespearian in the scope of its tragedy."

Buffy shot Spike a glare promising sever retribution if he'd told Gage a version of events too close to the truth or one with too much detail.

"A few years after Darla's death, Angelus had an affair with a young, Jewish witch." Upon hearing Gage's words, Buffy's glare was joined by one from Willow. While Spike knew Buffy was capable of causing him serious physical pain, he was more concerned about Willow. Not only did he give the wicca credit for being able to dream up more creative punishments than a Slayer-sponsored ass-kicking, but he also knew the redhead had the power to back up any such threats.

"Put your wand away, Red," he muttered. "It's not you." Willow relaxed slightly.

"The witch's name was Shelia." Even before Gage finished the sentence, Spike snickered.

"It's your mum."

Willow clenched her teeth together and drew in a deep breath, valiantly fighting the urge to turn the obnoxious vampire into a giant fly that Buffy could feed to the spiders still at large in Sunnydale.

The more Willow thought about it, thought, the more entertained she was by the image of her very conservative mother who had once tried to burn her at the stake practicing witchcraft and dating a vampire.

"Now, as you might imagine," Gage said, eyeing the exchange between Willow, Buffy, and Spike dubiously. "Angelus wasn't really a one woman kind of guy. Inevitably he cheated on her. When Shelia found out, she called on a powerful vengeance demon to help her curse her unfaithful lover."

"What's a vengeance demon?" the blonde woman sitting in front of Buffy asked.

Gage smiled, pleased that the tale was keeping his audience so rapt. He explained, "It's a demon who specializes in granting wishes to women who have been wronged in love. Whatever the woman who summons the demon asks for, it will be granted."

By this time, both Buffy and Willow had realized what was coming next, so they were able to keep straight faces with little difficulty when Gage revealed the vengeance demon's identity.

"So, Shelia summoned Anyanka - that was the vengeance demon's name - and she wished for a spell to curse Angelus with a soul, so he would feel pain and guilt for all of his evil actions over the years. You see, vampires are inherently remorseless creatures, so Shelia thought that this pain would be comparable to the pain he had caused her."

"Wow!" a man to Spike's left exclaimed. "That's vicious!"

"Yes, yes it is," Spike agreed with a self-satisfied smirk, rather pleased with the fate he'd envisioned for Angel, even if it was pretty close to the truth.

"The now fully souled vampire changed his name from Angelus to Angel to help distinguish between the two personalities," Gage said as he continued to explain events to his students. "As you know, Angelus was ruthless, cruel, and extremely violent. Angel, on the other hand, was kind, compassionate, and felt extreme guilt for his past actions. And here's where the story takes a fairy tale turn. About 16 years later, Angel fell in love with a beautiful young woman. The catch? She was the current Vampire Slayer."

"Of course she was," Buffy muttered resignedly under her breath. While thankful that so far Spike hadn't mangled Angel too much, she was anxious about what spin the blonde vampire might have put on her role in the whole "moment of pure happiness" thing.

Seeing the blonde girl stiffen in her seat and following her line of thinking, Spike leaned over and whispered, "Oh relax, Slayer. It's not like I told him you were such a good lay Angel couldn't hold onto his soul."

Buffy kept her gaze trained on Gage, pointedly ignoring the vampire's "reassurance."

Completely caught up in the story and forgetting that one of the key players was sitting in his audience, Gage continued. "As their love grew, so did Angel's happiness. While still unable to forget about his past sins, he started to allow himself to believe that redemption was possible, that he could once again find peace. Unfortunately, what neither Shelia nor her vengeance demon told him was that, while in possession of his soul, if he ever experienced a moment of pure happiness, one where he forgot entirely the pain he was supposed to be feeling, he would lose his soul. This, of course, was a double edged sword. To experience such a moment, he would have to embrace the soul and try to live again. However, to fully succeed in this endeavor would mean a loss of the very thing that made it possible - his soul. If that happened, he would return to being the violent, brutal creature he had been as Angelus, unquestionably damned once again."

"But if Angel didn't know about this." the boy behind the Scooby trio who had spoken trailed off as he searched for the right phrase.

"Happiness clause," Buffy supplied with a sigh.

"Thanks," he nodded at her before continuing. "If he didn't know about this happiness clause, how could he avoid it?"

"Therein lies the true tragedy," Willow said sadly, recalling the months of terror and death that could have been avoided had Angel only known about the clause in his curse.

"Indeed," Gage agreed, smiling sadly at Buffy, at last remembering that she was the slayer who had lived through this. He cleared his throat and resumed his tale. "When the vampire and slayer first confessed their love to one another, he experienced that moment of pure happiness and his soul fled. He spent the next six months practicing his old habits, stalking the slayer and her friends, even killing some of them. One of those he killed was a teacher close to the slayer. The other was her closest male friend."

"Xander?" Willow demanded of the vampire next to her in a whisper. "You had him kill Xander?"

Spike shrugged slightly before whispering his reply. "Trust me, Red. You have no idea how close the whelp came to dying on more than one occasion during Angelus' little reign of terror."

The truthfulness in Spike's tone sobered Willow to the point that she almost missed Gages' next words.

"The slayer's other best friend, a young witch named Maple, vowed to avenge their friends' deaths."

"Nice." The softness of Willow's comment did not lessen the sarcasm in the young woman's voice. "Why didn't you just call me 'Oak' or 'Pine?'"

Before Spike could reply, Gage continued. "Her mother had also been a powerful witch before her death, and Maple decided to see if she could find an appropriate spell in her mother's spellbooks." Gage paused before asking, "Any guesses as to her mother's identity?"

"Shelia!" various students around the room shouted out, eager to hear if the slayer's witch friend was indeed the daughter of Angel's curser.

"That's right," Gage answered, smiling. "In her mother's things, Maple found a journal detailing Shelia's affair with Angelus and his subsequent cursing."

A disturbing thought occurred to Willow, and she went stiff in her chair as she remembered the rough dates of Angelus and Shelia's "affair." While keeping her gaze locked on Professor Gage, she purposely pitched her voice low and threatening as she spoke to the vampire at her side.

"So help me, Spike. If Angel turns out to be my father, you're going to turn into something cute and furry."

Out of the corner of her eye, Willow noted with satisfaction that Spike paled and swallowed visibly.

tbc

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A/N: Whew! I was beginning to think I'd never get that chapter done. Of course, ff.net being offline just encouraged me to procrastinate more. Not to mention to the demands of real life. Honestly, what was the world thinking demanding I divert attention from my fanfiction efforts? Thankfully, things have settled back down, and this chapter is done. That means the ball should resume its momentum.

As for the anonymous comment pointing out inconsistencies in the timeline - guilty as charged and sorry about that. I'll get those few diamond references out of there, as this is still set in a post "All The Way," pre "Once More, With Feeling" world. Thanks for the continued support of this story, and I promise the next chapter will reveal Spike and Dru's fates - at least according to our favorite blonde vamp. ht